


Delicate Delusions

by Ruunkur



Series: Reboot: Aftermath [1]
Category: Digimon Adventure
Genre: In which the kids rebooted. Rebooted everything., TRI AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 21:23:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17711822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruunkur/pseuds/Ruunkur
Summary: What sort of path could he walk, when he was the only one that remembered their existences? How could he explain it to anyone, when it slid right past them and they didn't remember anything they had done together?What if they were right and the others weren't real?





	Delicate Delusions

There's a moment in life where one had to take a moment to judge their lifestyle. The one that would drive anyone crazy, if they considered it too long.

The type of life that their family would click their tongues at and shake their heads.

It's here that he finds himself.

The apartment was a scattered mess, reminding him that nothing was right. That the darkness only kept the worst of everything from him.

Not that it hid anything.

The man dropped his keys on the small table by the door, kicking off his shoes and stepping into the living room.

“Hey there.”

The statement made the man jerk around, his gaze darting around the apartment, landing on the sofa.

“Aren't you a bit lost?”

He let out a sigh, running a hand over the beard he had been growing. There were two people on the couch, one sitting nearly on top of the other.

“I think I am exactly where I want to be.”

The man takes a breath, closing his eyes. He could imagine the scene playing out on the couch.

“You're going to get hurt.”

Their laughter cause the man to flinch.

“I don't care.”

The man let out a sigh, a huff as he stepped into the empty living room, dropping onto the couch. 

Easy to ignore the scenes that would play, he thought, drunker than drunk.

Finding the bottle still on the couch, he twisted the lid off and took a swig. The burning making him nearly cough.

He put the lid back on, running the back of his hand over his mouth.

“You gonna share?”

His gaze flicked to the side, watching the slow smirk of the man. He was younger, by three years, than the man on the couch.

“You're not really here.”

The man laughed, his hand pressing to the other's chest. His fingers curled into the fabric and he swallowed, hard.

“Am i not?” the other man whispered.

He closed his eyes, taking a breath. “You were never real, you were always a part of me.”

“Doesn't that make me as real as you?”

He takes a breath, feeling the press of lips against his own. His brain ramped up, words curling around themselves.

Protests.

Desires.

He let out a small whine, his hand releasing the bottle and letting it shatter on the wood of the living room.

“You should shave.”

“You're not real.”

The laughter again, clear and bright. Malicious and hard.

“Shave and I'll show you just how real I am.”

The man let out a groan, shoving himself off the couch. Definitely alone.

Not alone, there are footsteps and noise spilling out of the secondary bedroom.

He trudged to the bathroom, turning on the light and flinching under the bright light. When his eyes adjusted, the ragged appearance of one Yagami Taichi greeted him.

He went to work on the beard, if one could call it that. It was scraggly, unkempt, and he felt like shit.

Shaving done, taichi sat down on the toilet seat, running a hand up his arm, tugging the sleeve up.

How long had it been since that day? The day that they realized they had been fucked with. The day that he had found their four friends, their teammates, in capsules.

Five, something told him.

There were five people in those capsules.

And the others had only been worried about him.

“Well, no, cause they don't know who we are, don't they?”

Taichi jumped, meeting the man's gaze in the mirror.

“None of you exist,” he breathed.

“Oh, thanks for that, yagami.”

A different voice. Female, annoyed. The lanky woman is leaning against the doorframe, eyes trained on Taichi. She had switched to contacts two years ago, gotten a fake id. She had a better grasp on faking a life than the other four.

Three.

One had left, determined to strike out on a life of his own.

“None of you-” Taichi began but the woman walked over, pressing a finger to his lips.

“Oh please, don't give me that line, taichi. If you didn't think we were real, you wouldn't have given us free range of the apartment.”

Taichi took a breath, looking into her eyes. She removed her finger from his lips, pressing her lips onto his own.

With a blink, she was walking out, tossing hair over her shoulder. 

He swallowed, pushing himself off the toilet seat and shuddering.

When the bell of the apartment rang, taichi heard the two bedroom doors snap shut. He stepped into the entrance, opening the door.

“What do you want?”

His voice was gruff, tired. The alcohol had hit him harder than he realized, leaving him scrambling to keep up with everything around him.

“Came to check up on you.” The blond shouldered his way into the apartment, hus gaze taking in the darkened room.

“I don't need checking up on.”

There was a routine the seven of them had set up. Check on Taichi once a week. Make sure Taichi was on his meds. Make sure he was alive. Make sure he was still…

Still what? Alive? Sane? Coherent?

“You let the apartment go to shit.”

“You gonna clean it for me, dad?” Taichi choked on his laughter, Yamato taking another step towards him.

“You missed Hikari's wedding.”

Taichi felt himself go still. “Takeru?” he guessed.

“Yeah.”

Miyako wouldn't be pleased with that. A relationship crumbles when one partner doesn't remember you exist.

She had been so upset the first couple of weeks.

“Oi, yagami!”

The loud voice made taichi wince, his gaze turning to where Daisuke was lounging against the counter.

“What the fuck daisuke?”

Yamato’s gaze darted from Taichi to the counter, stepping towards the younger man.

“Who the fuck are you?” Yamato asked, body tense.

“Nobody.”

“Fuck you.”

“Shut up, daisuke.”

“Are you off your meds, Yagami? Is this why you missed our siblings wedding? You're a useless piece of shit.” Yamato was angry, his eyes flashing.

“Oh man,” Daisuke whistled, “you can't even think straight around us, Ishida. You fucking left us to die, you all did.”

Taichi winced. And, when he looked over again, Daisuke was gone. Like he had never been there.

Yamato was already stalking towards the bathroom, yanking open the cabinets, looking at the empty pill bottles.

There was yelling, of course there was yelling. It never went physical, not after Taichi cracked.

And, according to them, he had cracked. Talking about things the seven of them had no clue of. The digital world was nothing. Taichi had been found with four John Does and one Jane Doe.

Running dna on the five did not come up with any records. Then, people forgot that they were there. Would look at them, then past them.

Taichi had been adamant about their existence. It had resulted in him being sent to a hospital.

Two years and several medications later, he had been released.

He had been shuffled off to the apartment by his parents. All expenses paid. No questions asked.

The four kids -god, he could only look at them as kids, as the eleven year olds that had been swallowed up- had shown up, one after the other. He had let them in, no questions asked. They needed someone who could remember them. Someone who understood what the reboot had done to them.

Had taken from them.

There was nothing more that Taichi could do and he hated himself for that.

The other seven took it upon themselves to check up on their delusional friend. Taichi hadn’t asked them, had pleaded with them to stop coming. That only meant they came more often, forced him out of the apartment.

He hated them, for that. Hated that their eyes would turn to worry whenever he would bring up the digital world, their parents. What had happened. The reboot to try and save their digimon friends

They didn’t remember.

“Yamato.”

A warning, Taichi knew. One that went over Yamato's head.

He wouldn't even remember Ken standing there. No way to get out of this. May as well play it out.

“Yeah, I'm off my meds, so what?” Taichi demanded.

“We're worried about you, Tai.”

Yamato was closer than Taichi preferred. He tried to put his hands up, take a step back but that entailed him falling into the bathtub.

“Shit.”

He moved to push himself up, pressing his fingers to the back of his head.

When Yamato offered him a hand, Taichi smacked it away.

“If I'm so fucking screwed, why do you keep coming back? Let me rot in my own delusions and leave me alone, Ishida.”

Taichi saw Ken come further into the room, eyes blazing in anger.

“You won't remember this, but it's worth a try. If you don't leave Taichi alone, I'll choke you with my whip.”

Taichi shuddered at the sound of the kaiser leaking through. Easy to see it in Ken's stance, his eyes blazing.

Yamato froze, his eyes flashing to Ken. “who the fuck-” he began.

“Get out, Yamato.” Taichi had picked himself up by now, Yamato stepping several feet back. They only stayed in the bathroom for a handful more minutes, each of them backing out.

Taichi let out a breath, feeling relieved as he watched Yamato leave. There was a moment to his side, Taichi turning to see Ken standing next to him, concern on his face.

“Head injuries, they bleed a lot.”

Taichi gave a laugh, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, he was in his bed, alone in the dark.

The throbbing in his head was the only thing that reminded him Yamato had been there.

“Are you going to go away again?”

Taichi opened his eyes, seeing Daisuke had entered the room. He raised a hand, watching as the image blurred.

“No, I’m not going to.”

He hoped not.

**Author's Note:**

> In which I play around with the idea that the Reboot made it so that the digital world didn't exist. That the kids in the digital world got deleted from memory, cause they were in the digital world at the time. And Taichi, somehow, managed to get them out anyway.


End file.
